Shareholder Allan Richardson, who is a sheep and beef farmer from Heriot, said the dividend was used to get farmers on board.

"I believe it was used as a sweetener to get the Shanghai Maling deal over the line with shareholders. You can understand why because many of them have never had a dividend payout from Silver Fern Farms - they took this as though it's going to be the only one.

"I very much doubt there will be another dividend payout with the current ownership."

"It [the dividend] will be very well accepted, this has been another break-even or loss-making year and for some farmers it may actually get them to the break-even stage - but that's a poor state of affairs when a one-off payment like this balances the books for one year."

Silver Fern Farms announced a full-year net operating loss yesterday of $30.6m in the year ended in September, compared with a near $25m profit the year earlier.

Sales fell 11 percent to almost $2.2 billion, while profit margins were also down.

Silver Fern Farms chief executive Dean Hamilton said the result also reflected a strong currency, amplified by a sharp fall in the British pound following the Brexit vote.